


Broken

by Spooksy



Series: Alex is asexual I don't make the rules [1]
Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Asexual Character, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22535266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spooksy/pseuds/Spooksy
Summary: Alex is broken, he knows that. It's not normal to not want to have sex. Not now, not later, never. He's a teenage boy, for God's sake (sorry abuelita).Sometimes he just wishes he was normal.
Relationships: Alex Alvarez & Elena Alvarez, Alex Alvarez/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Alex is asexual I don't make the rules [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738162
Comments: 5
Kudos: 113





	Broken

Broken.

Alex is broken, he knows that. It's not normal to _not_ want to have sex. Not now, not later, never. He's a teenage boy, for God's sake (sorry abuelita), with a beautiful girlfriend of almost ten months. He's _supposed_ to have sex with her, but he hasn't, the most he's done is made out with her, and he knows that's not normal ( _he's broken)_.

Alex wants to be normal. He desperately wants to be able to relate to his friends about sex and all those types of things he _just can't bring himself to want_. It's not fair. 

Sometimes Alex just wants to do it. Just say fuck it and force himself to sleep with his girlfriend. So he does. They've been making out for the past few minutes and Alex can tell Chloe is ready to go further. She's rubbing her body against him and Alex is so sure he's fixed because the room's getting hotter and his hearts beating faster and it _has_ to be arousal, right? The walls are pressing in closer and Alex can't breathe and he's beginning to think that maybe he's not fixed, maybe he's even more broken than he thought because he's panicking at the fact that his _girlfriend_ wants to have sex with him. He's supposed to want this, for fucks sake. He _does_ want this, he tells himself and he forces his breaths to slow and he focuses on Chloe, focuses on trying to make her happy, because he thinks he loves her and Chloe deserves someone beitter than him because he's broken, and disgusted at the fact that he panicked at the prospect of having sex.

He does it with Chloe, and he tells himself that he doesn't regret it. ( _He does_ ). He loves Chloe, and spending time with her; chatting about anything and everything, playing video games with her and losing, sneaking out to the park at night to stare at the stars and vape, because he feels safe around her. 

Throughout the ten months Alex and Chloe have been dating, Alex has only thought about sex when his friends bring it up, and every time he can't help thinking that he's broken, because he _is_ , because what sixteen year old boy _doesn_ 't want to have sex. It's unnatural and Alex hates himself for it. He just wants to be normal. 

* * *

Alex wants to stay with Chloe, but it's hard when all he can think about is the next time she'll want to have sex, and Alex _really_ doesn't think he can do it again. He wants to tell someone, but opening yourself up to someone? Bearing your whole life out to them, completely vulnerable, naked? Telling someone that Alex is broken further beyond fixing than he thought, that he hates himself, that sometimes the pressure all of his friends put on him, the pressure of society to have sex! Sex! Sex!, just gets too much? Alex can't bring himself to do it. Would mami understand? Abuelita, Elena, Schneider? He doesn't think even Elena and Schneider, the two most 'woke' people he knew would get it. Because there's just _something innately wrong with him_. 

It's the middle of the night and Alex can't sleep, his mind racing with random thoughts, from Chloe to Elena, to the new Yeezys and how the _fuck_ is he going to get mami to get them for him. He's also trying not to think about the thing that's been plaguing him for months, the _real_ reason he can't sleep, tonight or any other. If he thinks about it, then that's it, he won't be able to sleep for the rest of the night, and he doesn't want that to happen again, because he _really_ needs sleep, and the teachers at school are probably tired of yelling at him to wake up in the middle of maths, English, history class. 

But trying not to think about it only makes it harder for him to ignore it, and eventually his mind wanders back over to _that_ side of his brain. Alex hates feeling like this. He hates hating himself but he can't help it when he's as fucked in the head as he is. 

Alex knows that sleeping is not going to happen, not tonight, so he slips out of bed and pads over to the fire escape. As quietly as he can, he slides the window open and climbs out, the crisp night air biting at his fingers and toes while he utters a sigh and pulls out the vape pen he got from Finn. He feels guilty everytime he uses it, because he knows that if mami found out she would be so disappointed in him. But these past few months have been a lot, and lately it seems that vaping is the only way to get his mind off of things. 

Blowing the smoke away from his face, Alex doesn't notice the light from Elena's room turn on and a confused face look out of it. He _does_ hear his door open with a soft click and the woosh of his window sliding open a second later though, and in his panic to hide the vape, he drops it off the fire escape, landing with a clatter two stories down.

He sighs bitterly and turns, anxious, to face his sister. She looks as if she's waiting for an explanation, staring pointedly at Alex and clearing her throat quietly. 

Alex stutters out a badly thought out excuse, something about it not being a vape, but a USB, and don't worry Elena, but she cuts him off. 

"Alex, I know what you were doing, don't try that bullshit with me. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't go to mami and tell her you're smoking again." She whisper-shouted, looking disappointed and another emotion Alex couldn't quite figure out.

"I need it, please don't tell mami, she'll just ground me until I'm forty," Alex pleaded.

"Why do you _need_ it?" Elena asked.

Alex wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her because the weight on his shoulders about _everything_ \- the brokenness, the insomnia, the constant racing thoughts - was just getting too much. So, resigned Alex spoke.

"Because," his voice broke, "it's the only thing that stops my thoughts from getting too much. I can't sleep without it. _Please_ don't tell mami."

Elena looked taken aback. She hadn't expected _that_. So, with the concerned air of an older sister, she pulled Alex in for a hug. Albeit an awkward one, because she was still leaning on the windowsill and Alex was sitting above her on the fire escape. 

It must've been five minutes they stayed there, and when they pulled back, Alex was close to tears. 

"Do you wanna talk about it? You know I love you, right? You can tell me _anything_. I won't judge." Elena's tone was soft, and Alex suddenly felt the need to tell her everything, about how he was broken, how he doesn't want to have sex, and how he forced himself to because he thought he had to, how vaping was the only thing that seemed to quiet his thoughts at night. So he did. He told her everything, and Elena sat and listened, eyes shiny with tears, and halfway through she grabbed his hand and rubbed circles on the palm. When he finally finished, she spoke. 

"I don't think you're broken, but I think I might know what you are," Elena said, and Alex's heart leaped, "have you heard of 'asexual'?" She asked.

"Isn't that when cells reproduce or something?" Alex said, earning a chuckle from Elena.

"No, idiota," she smiles fondly, "it's when a person doesn't feel sexual attraction. They can be completely sex repulsed or sex positive, but I _think_ you're sex repulsed, from your experience with Chloe. By the way, Alex, I think you should talk to her. You don't deserve to have to go through that again. It wasn't either of your faults, but I can't imagine how it would feel to be in that situation."

Alex just gaped at her. He couldn't believe his ears. He _wasn't_ broken? He was… asexual. "Asexual." The word rolled off his tongue easily, like it was meant for him. "That… explains a lot. About everything. Thanks Elena." 

"Love you, even if you are an idiot sometimes," Elena smiled.

Alex smiled back and felt himself get pulled in for another hug, just in time because his eyes brimmed over again and the tears were pouring down, his slender frame shaking with sobs of bittersweet relief. 

* * *

Alex wakes to the noise of the already busy streets of downtown LA, shivering in the cool morning air. It takes him a few seconds to realise where he is. He's apparently still lying upright on the fire escape, though somehow his bedsheets have travelled all the way from his bed to the fire escape.

The duvet has been tucked carefully in at his sides, and his pillow is dangling meticulously on the edge of the railing, trapped between his head and the metal. Alex briefly wonders how he managed to stay asleep while Elena was doing this, but brushes the thought away. 

Alex thinks back to last night's conversation. Elena said he was 'asexual', which seemed to fit him perfectly. He hums a single note. So Alex _wasn't_ broken. The weight that has been pushing down on him for the last few months crumbles, and Alex sighs. 

Gathering his pillow and blanket into his arms, nearly knocking his pillow off the railing in the process, he clambers inside, as graceful as one can carrying a heavy bundle of fabrics. 

Once inside, Alex hugs himself, rubbing his arms, the hairs still standing up from the goosebumps from being outside in the cool morning air. He sighs again, contentedly, for once, feeling just a little less broken and a lot more hopeful.

It's a _good_ day to be him.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all!! This is my first ever fic, and I'm pretty proud of myself ngl :-)
> 
> n E wayz time to insert myself into my favourite character again😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜😜 :-)


End file.
